Innishannon

Yup. It has… But if Mike was still looking for an answer regarding it, I’m sure he’d appreciate hearing about it even if it has been 8 years in passing.

Hey Mike. I don’t know if anyone was ever able to answer this but I can… Surely you know that there is always a difference in taste when comparing Old Dutch boxed chips with the same flavour in the bags. There is a big difference. The easiest comparison is that of Old Dutch’s most popular, and staple potato chip, Old Dutch RIP-L chips. Originally, there were no bags of Old Dutch potato chips. Are you old enough to recount that? Hah, err… I am. Old Dutch box potato chips are superior to ALL Old Dutch potato chips in bag. Plain and simple, this is the way. I had a buddy whose sister works at the Old Dutch plant in Winnipeg. Without divulging any secret recipes or methods in preparation or bagging, what it comes down to essentially is that the “twin pack” bags found in Old Dutch boxes keep the freshness and taste that the chip is meant to portray, best. Don’t believe me? Buy a bag of any flavour in box and that same flavour in the bag… Ripple chips are how I began to question this exact theory. Now, some flavours are only available in box, or in the bag. I don’t eat anything else but RIP-L, BBQ, Ketchup and maybe Salt n’ Vinegar, once in a while, but those are the ones that exactly prove my point. Those particular foil bags that they use in the twin pack boxes are a secret. They are what keep the chip the absolute freshest. Old Dutch box chips > Old Dutch bag chips. That still doesn’t answer your appeal though, does it? Okay, so let me shoot this your way. Out on the east coast, oddly, Old Dutch potato chips aren’t seen (or purchased, for that matter) like they are here, on the prairies and in Ontario. So what did they eat out east, you ask? Well, from what my close friend and native Newfoundlander told me was a variety of different brands including Lay’s, Ruffles (which are now sold together under “Frito-Lay”), some smaller brands, and an interesting brand called “Humpty’s”. Now, finding a bag of Humpty’s is near impossible these days because they were bought out by a couple of different companies, one of which you may know and like. They’re called Old Dutch. When the rights to bag and distribute some of the types of flavours Humpty’s had, Old Dutch chose to bag and distribute Humpty’s BBQ chips, even going as far as removing THEIR OWN version of BBQ chips entirely. Yep, there was a time when Old Dutch removed their BBQ chip recipe completely off the market. MANY very p!ssed off customers from Western Canada wrote in to Old Dutch HQs in utter disgust of this imposter BBQ flavour now found in Old Dutch chip bags AND boxes. After roughly a year or so, Old Dutch wisely decided to bring back their flavour favourite BBQ chips we all grew up loving endearingly. So now, Old Dutch sells their original BBQ chip flavour exclusively in the boxes while Humpty’s BBQ chip flavour is distributed in the bags, also the reason why the graphic is different on the box than it is on the bag. Classic Old Dutch BBQ chips always had the roaring campfire and BBQ was written in “log-letters” as the recognizable flavour logo. The Humpty’s BBQ chip flavour on the bag has a graphic of a comic hibachi BBQ and some goofy font. So yeah, that’s the story of why the bagged BBQ Old Dutch potato chips, to this day, don’t taste like Old Dutch BBQ boxes. Old Dutch box potato chips are superior to the bagged, in flavour and in freshness too. p.S. I tried to include a photo of the bags and boxes but I kept getting a red background upon pasting and could continue. It’s easy to find the two photos though. Just type “Old Dutch BBQ chips box vs bag”